“No one is solely the worst thing they have ever done.”

“No one is solely the worst thing they have ever done.” — Gabrielle Horowitz-Prisco, Director of Juvenile Justice Project.

This week The Epoch Times takes a powerful look at New York’s juvenile corrections system, shedding further light on the harsh and often dehumanizing conditions experienced by many of the state’s incarcerated youth. Featuring an interview with Gabrielle Horowitz-Prisco, Director of the CA’s Juvenile Justice Project, the piece explores in particular the rates at which young New Yorkers 16-17 years of age are placed in adult prisons, get remanded to solitary confinement, and are frequently subjected to — or at dangerous risk of) — mistreatment and abuse by both older prisoners and prison guards.

In the article, Horowitz-Prisco underscores the urgency of state officials to review and reform existing youth corrections practices, saying “Children don’t vote or have a lot of spending power. They don’t lobby. They don’t always have advocates for them the way other groups do. But I really think humanity rests on this. The cost of not caring for children is our collective well-being, the fate of a planet, a society, our ability to be happy.”

News

( Sept. 9. 2018,The Guardian) Inmates within America’s overflowing prisons are marking the end of a 19-day national prison strike on Sunday with a new push to regain the vote for up to 6 million Americans who have been stripped of their democratic rights.Read More

Press

Staten Islanders had the opportunity Thursday night to briefly experience one of the hardest parts of our nation’s penal system. A group of advocates brought a makeshift solitary cell to the South Shore YMCA in Eltingville to show people the level of isolation inmates can face. The model was constructed by Doug Van Zandt, of [...]Read More

“The isolation itself is torture. Mentally and emotionally, it breaks you down. Spiritually it strips you. The way it is built is to break you down as a person and push your family away.” From “Solitary at Southport” Solitary confinement is torture. New York State subjects people to solitary confinement and other forms of isolation [...]Read More

Prison Monitoring Reports

Attica Correctional Facility, a 2,000-bed maximum security prison in western New York, continues to operate as a symbolic and real epicenter of state violence and abuse of incarcerated persons in the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS) state prison system 43 years after the 1971 prison uprising and violent suppression by state authorities. The [...]Read More